For example, in an electric vehicle or a hybrid vehicle, it is necessary to use a shield conductor as power supply lines to an inverter apparatus, and from the inverter apparatus to a drive motor. As the shield conductor used in such applications, there has been considered a structure in which a plurality of non-shield electric wires are enclosed with a shield member formed of a tubular braided wire, which is formed by weaving a thin metal wire into a mesh form, to electromagnetically shield them in a package.
However, in a vehicle, not only electromagnetic shielding of conductor lines, but also the protection of the electric wires (such as protection from rebounding stones during driving) needs to be considered since those shield conductors are wired on the bottom face of a vehicle body as well as in an engine room. For this reason, generally, a configuration in which a braided wire is enclosed with a protector made of synthetic resin is adopted; however, there is a problem that use of the protector will increase the number of parts.
Accordingly, the present applicants proposed a structure in which a non-shield electric wire is inserted into a metal pipe as described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-171952. According to this structure, since the metal pipe exerts both the function of electromagnetically shielding the electric wire and the function of protecting the electric wire from rebounding stones etc., the structure requires a fewer number of parts compared with a shield conductor using a shield member and a protector, and is also more advantageous in terms of strength than a synthetic resin protector.